Now begins the long flogging, the rote exploitation, the extraction of money from the gullible and bored
There’s no point beating a dead horse, but that ought to go double for a man, but
Perhaps the first three movies exhausted the collective imagination
You can see where I’m going with this. The fourth Frankenstein movie is B grade all the way, although audiences may have been buoyed by the early appearance of Lugosi as Ygor. He finds the monster wasn’t killed by the last reel of the previous film – oh, imagine that – and helps him escape. They head off to the Conveniently Located Village, which is full of Villagers who have made the mistake of going outside in the daylight without torches, something that always results in the appearance of the Monster and some head-clouting and/or strangling. But this time the film tries to revive our sympathy for the Monster, as he helps a little girl. Her ball is stuck on the roof, and he goes to get it. Only throws two villagers off the roof in the process.
The scene where the Monster decides to help the little girl shows what potential the movie had – if it had just kept up this style.
As for the rest of it, well . . . no. Hey, Igor, can I keep this waiter? He followed me home and seems fond of me.
For my next act, I will drink a glass of water while my puppet speaks:
Brain transplants are involved, and the cerebellum of Ygor ends up in the Monster’s head. This makes the Monster extra nasty, and he decides to kill everyone by poison gas, watching from a sealed room with evident amusement:
That’s not Karloff; he knew better than to do this one. That’s Lon Chaney Jr., who was also known as the Wolfman. If you’re wondering whether the Monster dies in this one – why, of course! Like every great monster, he dies in every single one of his appearances. Last time he fell in a sulfer pit; this time he goes blind and can’t find his way out of the house. But don’t worry – if there’s anything that’s impervious to the effects of fire, it’s old reused skin that’s been reanimated a few times. He’ll be back.
The trailer looks good, but the lab scene warns you the budget has been cut a bit. Or a lot.
